This morning, I was in the elevator of an office building with three people in their thirties—two guys and a woman. And one of the guys was holding an orange that he’d cut in half. He was speaking with his hands and proceeded to drop the thing on the ground the flat side down. The elevator looked like it was used to film Oz, back in the day. Bummer, I thought. Dropping food is always such a drag, especially if it is good food. And an orange is usually tasty.

I was not prepared for what happened next. He scooped the thing off of the filthy floor and said, “twenty-second rule” and starts to eat it. He glances at me and I look like had just seen the ghost of Abraham Lincoln smoking crack. I put my hands up and say, “Whatever, man.” But on the inside I’m thinking, “twenty-second rule? Who are you, Greystoke?” You could commit a quadruple murder in, like, sixteen seconds. In twenty seconds, bacteria from the floor will hump the shit out of whatever you drop. I almost got pinkeye even thinking about it.

You know what “second rule” is acceptable? How about the “no-second rule”? A rule that I like to live by, and one you should too, is this: Don’t eat anything that may have come in contact with the bottom of someone’s shoes.

It’s simple really.

Celebrity pubes. This is what the world has come to. I was on an entertainment site looking for pictures of Rihanna’s head lumps, on the beach in Barbados (I was told that they’d be there) when an ad for a website called Celebrity Pubes popped up along the side of the page.

Ah, the lure of banner advertising. Still, how could I not peek? Well, the ultimate lie of CP, was that it was a blog, not a real site. There were a few dispiriting photos there, taken by the absolute dregs of society. But it was clear that they were holding back. Then, predictably, they tried to forward me to another site, where you had to become a “Member” to see any photos. A member. Just imagine how precariously held your connection to decent society must be to decide to give those people not only your name, but your credit card information.  Your trust. You are telling the pajamed industry titans behind the site, “Hey, if you are smart enough to cull celebrity pube photos, why wouldn’t I give you the access to destroy my credit like that singing pirate?”

For your membership fee, you don’t get a hat or even a free t-shirt. Probably just as well, right? A CP t-shirt would be a real kamikaze move in mixed company. I feel somewhat creepy myself even mentioning it, to be honest. But I’ll survive.

And for the men to whom “Celebs XXXposed” just won’t suffice, there are now a handful of even more anatomically specific sites (none of which I care to mention in—uh—mixed company) at the ready.

The whole thing gives me pause, but I need to focus on the positive: my “I Hate Celebrity Feet!” mega-site will be operation in four-to-six weeks.  And it won’t be a pay site. It will actually be free, and we will survive solely on banner advertising.

Promisingly, the Celebrity Pubes folks have already expressed interest.

How’s this for ridiculous? On, Friday night I fly to London, arrive Saturday around noon, drop my bags at a friend’s and immediately head out to Emirates Stadium to watch Fulham and Arsenal tangle. While I have several close friends who have seasons to Arsenal and sit second row mid-pitch, I will be sitting with another friend in the away stands, ostensibly rooting for the underdog Fulham. I am an underdog rooter, one, and two, I can sense that the FFC are heading into a lion’s den. Fulham appear to be the Minnesota Vikings of the Premiership and I say that with all due respect, which is to say, a middling respect at the very most. They try, at least.

The best part of the whole experience is this: the loser buys beers and no matter what transpires, I will not be the loser. Perfection.

After that, I have time for a shower and it’s off to a 40th birthday party that will test my limits, to be sure. The one thing that Londoners can guarantee is that the party will be hopping. Sometime around 1 am, when I am eating a $40 cheeseburger and talking to someone that is yelling something about a barmaid’s  arse, I will begin to see triple. And then I will retire.

Last time I was there, for a wedding, folks were practically begging me to ensure that Obama would win. I told them not to worry, but I sure was. Now, GG and I go back as conquering heroes. We did it. We finally have the smart president, while they are stuck with that poor, lost sap Gordon Brown.

Turnabout is fair play. Except if you are playing for Fulham.

One day, in the not too distant future, I will be able to say, without reservation, that I am not bored. This, however, is not that day. Today is so boring that I have dusted the living room and practiced my Dutch, tried to think of an anagram for Bar Rafaeli that wouldn’t get me slapped (two favorites: Alba Fairer, and the you-have-to-think-about-it, Bare Fa Lira), and lastly, wrote letters to people that I will never send. Remember, we spoke about that.

I have just finished the book “American Lion” which is a biography of Andrew Jackson, about as complex an individual as I have ever come across, let alone a president of a fifty year-old country that was going buck-wild about everything from taxes to slavery to what-have-you. He had every good and bad quality one could have, all rolled into the guy nicknamed Old Hickory.

Extraordinarily heroic one moment, cruel the next. A tremendous family man, but vain enough to drive those away, when he wasn’t their sole focus. He launched the Trail of Tears and he protected regular Americans from the greedy banks, at the risk of his re-election.

It was written and exhaustively researched by John Meacham, who is the editor of the soon-to-be-defunct Newsweek. It is pretty fantastic, cover to cover. And if you are single, will probably get you a phone number, at the very least.

The thing I admired most about Jackson was that he was unafraid to fail and yet wouldn’t rush into decisions. He didn’t have the certainty that some have, but decided the best course and then went after it whole-hog, as they say in the south. The last guy with the gig was sorely lacking in that and the new guy seems to have it to spare.

And that is hopefully bringing us all comfort in these trying times. Something has to, right?

…does that make me an everything bagel w/ cream cheese, a cupcake, three slices of pepperoni pizza and some Sour Nerds—what I consumed today? (Plus, a turkey sandwich, some salad and four cups of coffee, but who gives a crap about the real food?) And if that maxim is true, is that really such a bad thing? All of the foodstuffs I have listed will surely put a smile on your face unless you had no sense of taste, or something.

Not to digress, but one time we met a friend of a friend in Amsterdam and she’d had been in a horrific snowboarding accident and lost both her sense of smell and taste. Whenever we would say how delicious something was, she would cry. It was kind of tragic, especially because GG kept forgetting that fact and would be saying “Smell this!” and “Oh my god, this is soooo delicious. Taste it, pretty lady” until she looked at me with her red-rimmed eyes and said, in her proper English accent, “Is she joking, your wife?”

But back to my original point: if I am what I eat that I guess I have it pretty good, by many people’s standards. Others not so much. Fair enough.

In the past (on another blog), I had talked about my childhood pet Linguine, a snapping turtle that disappeared under what could best be described as mysterious circumstances. But I don’t think I ever mentioned my other pet growing up: Happy the rabbit.

He was a good rabbit, first of all, as many rabbits are. Clean, silent, dependable. Very zen, actually.  (Now that you mention it, those same words could be used to describe the turtle.) And anyway, even the dogs we owned got along with Happy.  And they would often nap together.

Happy was a superb companion until my sister skulked home with her own rabbit, which was a grimy looking little character named PJ. I don’t like to discriminate against animals because of their appearance—I am, after all, the guy who felt terrible when Bob, the world’s ugliest dog, passed away—but PJ looked like he was from the wrong side of the patch. He was a desultory little hopper had a suspicious limp and his teeth were crooked. Like, if Chernobyl had a rabbit mill. That’s how PJ rolled.

He also gave off some negative vibes and wouldn’t want to sit around and watch TV or listen to me read aloud, which I loved to do as a kid. Or anything. I think PJ thought his job was to give dirty looks and crap everywhere in the house. It was awful. Happy would only go in a little area in his cage, which was easy to clean up, but PJ used the entire house as his toilet. And for that reason he was confined to his cage mostly.

But, over one summer, I began to notice Happy’s mood changing. He began to tip his food bowl and chew on chair legs and the bottoms of closet doors. He got  tattoo on his forepaw. (Not really.) I came back from a week of visiting my cousins and ran downstairs to say Hi and Happy hauled off and bit me. He wasn’t happy anymore, apparently. I was crushed and immediately blamed PJ for “turning” him, shaking my finger through the bars of that shitty little pet store cage.

My sister and I battled over the root cause of my rabbit’s anti-social behavior. She said Happy’s earlier attitude was “all a façade.” This is how we spoke to each other as children, which explains why we are all varying degrees of egghead mental patients. I had no idea what the eff a façade was, but I shook my head ‘no’. Not my rabbit.

Two days later Happy was dead. I killed him. (Just kidding, Lauren.) He died of natural causes or whatever. It was only later that I realized that he was probably angry about me being gone and, knowing that he was dying, held on until I returned so he could tell me to go fuck myself.

Or maybe he just got tired of me reading aloud. There is that.

Four more of my publishing friends got laid off yesterday. Four more smart people thrown into the  employment breach, trying to figure out what the hell happened to the careers that they had been building.

I did what I normally do: told them they were smart and to keep grinding and good things would happen. Not on the job front, but on the life front. And what are those good things? Well, for one, you get to stop defining yourself by your job. You appreciate your friends and family more, and really stop and smell the roses, despite the weather. The downside is, you know, you don’t get paid for being the good friend and clever conversationalist. (But, let me tell you people, you should.)

So the other day, I had some time to kill (ahem) and so I headed south until I hit the edge of Manhattan island, and spied Brooklyn in the distance like a challenged, oafish cousin. I thought about the logistics of shutting the bridges, tunnels and subways on, say, a Friday night,  and leaving the island for residents, and….but I digress.

Anyway, I skirted the edge, walking west and there in the distance was the Statue of Liberty. In all of my years, I have never visited it and never really thought much about it, but it was oddly comforting that day. Perhaps because that talking chimp has turned this city into one giant huddled mass of staggered people. Even those with jobs feel the pressure. And through it all, she has not slouched one bit.

As I drank a most wonderful triple espresso with three sugars and smoked a Romeo & Julieta Vintage No. 3, a beautiful daytime cigar, I thought about my great grandparents who saw much the same scene before the turn of the last century.

My great-grandmother, Minnie, who died about 20 years ago at age 103, arrived in New York harbor as they were erecting the Lady. She saw the city as a land of endless possibilities, where the harder you worked, the further along you could get. As a child, she spent seven days a week, twelve hours a day in a bakery. I think she made $3 a week and even after she fell through a hole in the floor, thirty feet down and shattered her hip, she was back at work two weeks later, one leg shorter than the other and with a pimp stroll worthy of George Jefferson. For the next ninety years of her life.

But she considered herself lucky to live here, the greatest city on earth. Today, the situation is far more muddied. Hard work and talent have no bearing on whether you will be facing the hangman’s noose of unemployment. It’s become a game of chance, with the odds stacked firmly against you going in.

But that doesn’t matter. Keep grinding. Good things will happen.

Trust me on that one.

P.S. Word to King Henry, V.

1. That is hope budding animal taunter Bindi Irwin get killed by wild animals…like her animal taunting father?

2. That I booed Mayor Giuliani at the first Mets game after 9/11?

3. That it excites me that Blair Waldorf’s mother was a criminal and she was born in prison?

4. That I would choose candy over any food, any day?

5. That I am obsessed with A&E’s “Intervention” even though it depresses me so?

6. That I care more about other people’s feelings than my own?

7. That I have begun a systematic (and underground) plan to rid myself of unresponsive friends—and that I am announcing it?

8. That I mend my own clothing because it relaxes me?

9. That I write angry letters to people and never mail them?

10. That my favorite time of day is after midnight, when I sit down to write?

11. That I think women in glasses are hot?

12. That I talk to my outdoor plants, even during the winter, when they are sleeping?

13. That I refer to my plants as “sleeping”?

14. That I dreamed I was a cactus the other night?

15. That I love leading, but also don’t mind following?

16. That I hate when British celebrities use the word “extraordinary”?

17. That I don’t like kids, but try to convince friends to name theirs Tony? (Even the girls.)

18. That I either read non-fiction or beach books and nothing in between?

19. That I have expensive clothing, but hate wearing it?

20. That despite everything I wouldn’t change my life for anything?

1. “I did not eat the whole bag in one sitting. Some of it fell on the floor.”
2. “They didn’t invite me? I don’t care.”
3. “They only made 100 pair—so what?
4. “Of course I trust you.”
5. “Your boyfriend/girlfriend is totally a great guy/girl. Totally.”
6.  “I am not obsessed with Olga Kurylenko. I’m just a fan of her work.”
7.  “Of course I wasn’t implying that you are lazy.”
8. “Jealous? Me?”
9. “That’s an unbelievable tattoo!”
10. “No, I think you chose a superb bottle of wine!”
11. “GG says Hi!”
12. “Good luck!”
13. “I got this scar in a knife fight. In Bangkok.”
14. “Hey, you’re funny!”
15. “Slumdog Millionaire was loosely based on my childhood.”
16. “Was that my idea? I can’t remember.”
17. “Wow, you are a talented writer.”
18. “I don’t watch Gossip Girl. I just saw Blair Waldorf in a commercial.”
19. “It’s so not a problem.”
20. “I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t wish ill on anyone.”
21. “Hey, I have to take this call.”
22. “You’re smart.”
23. “Your kids are awesome.”
24. “I’ve been so busy.”
25. “That doesn’t bother me. At all.”

Bonus Web Content:

26) “I miss you terribly.”

“There’s nothing creepier than ghost children.”

This is the quality of information that I receive from much of the television that I watch. This evening it was called The Most Terrifying Places in America, a show about as scary as the Ess-a-Bagel guys when you tell them they fucked up your order. Literally, the most inaccurately named show in America. Near as I can figure, I was watching it because I am attracted to shows about ghosts. Or just maybe the narrative that my tipsy mother inexplicably offered my in-laws at Christmas, “by all accounts, Tony should’ve been born retarded,” may actually be true.

(You know how when parents start getting up there in years, they begin to tell stories about you that you had previously never heard before? Yeah, that’s where we’re at. Cheers.)

If it’s a show about ghosts, I will watch it. We talked about the Ghosthunters debacle, but I will also watched Haunted from the UK because they curse like crazy and their “psychic” Derrick has an invisible ghost friend named Sam that he talks to. The one-sided convos are hysterical, mainly because Derrick acts as if he can barely hear Sam. (“Come again, Sam? A sailor named Pat died here? Oh, Peter? Oh, okay sorry, Sam.”) I should get a Ouija board and tell Sam to ditch that iPhone, once and for all.

Once I was watching the show, and halfway through realized that it was being filmed at Fitz Manor, the family estate of my friend Helen Baly, who is like one of those can-do, British frontierswomen (if they had such a  thing) always up to this or that. Like catering, and then construction. And her husband Pat, as great a bloke as I have ever met, makes me look like an average sized person.

Know what? This column seems to be going nowhere and so I will end it, but at least you did learn two important things. First, there is, in fact, nothing creepier than ghost children. And, second, I should’ve been  born retarded.

Word is bond.